A fundraising barbecue in Sidney for the Blinko family this past weekend raised over $20,000 for baby Piper.
Baby Piper, daughter of Sidney Pier Hotel employee Shawnie Blinko, is only a couple of months old and is already in the fight of her life.
Piper was born with malfunctioning kidneys in September and was immediately airlifted to Vancouver Children’s Hospital where her and her family have been staying since.
Piper’s kidneys are now functioning but she faces a slew of other health issues as a result.
The fundraiser took place last Saturday outside of the Sidney Save-On Foods, who donated the food for the event.
“The event was well attended, the weather was not that good but it certainly didn’t dampen people’s spirits,” said Kenny Podmore, one of the event organizers, adding that aside from the generous donations of food from Save-On-Foods, Scotiabank matched the donations made to the Blinko family dollar for dollar up to $5,000.
“Everyone was amazing, the volunteers worked so hard, Ed Bain was hilarious and his attendance was so appreciated and the volunteer firefighters went above and beyond by volunteering their time,” said Podmore.
“I am so proud to be involved with this department,” added Sidney fire chief Jim Tweedhope.
“This is a shining example how the members will pull out all the stops to help someone in our community. This time, the effort was to help one of our own and to see the degree of success is amazing.”
reporter@peninsulanewsreview.com